The strategic plan of a business is a plan that is future-oriented and used for developing and maximizing the company’s competitive advantage for it to accomplish its mission. For a business strategy to be successfully executed, every department in the business should align its functional strategy with the organization’s strategy (Saha, Gregar, & Saha, 2017). Every department operates distinctively in the company. For instance, information technology, operations, and HRM all have different responsibilities. Therefore, departmental leaders can quickly come up with a narrow perspective of their functional strategy. However, departments and functions should align their strategy with the overall strategy of the business for the smooth execution of the business plan.
The HR department affects how other business functions are operated and executed. One can identify this through the enterprise-wide responsibility of staffing in the department, although it extends to the entire employment life-cycle. At Ford Motor Company, the human resource department is involved in and affects other business functions through the acquisition of talent, performance management, development and training, benefits and compensation, and employee engagement and retention. Therefore, the company should sufficiently align the HR strategy with the overall business strategy to effectively achieve its mission (Saha, Gregar & Saha, 2017). One way that Ford can develop HRM strategies to improve its competitive advantage is by committing to promote diversity.
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Having a diverse workforce means different things to different employers. Nevertheless, there is an increasing number of companies that focus on obtaining diverse talents. Companies that have managed to promote inclusive hiring through attracting and retaining different skills have a competitive advantage in the market. As a motor company, it should commit to providing a diversity-friendly workplace culture. A significant part of attracting and retaining diverse talent is creating an environment and culture that is friendly and safe for all people. For instance, the company can implement family-friendly policies, such as flexible schedules, adding lactating rooms, and parental leave. Promoting a diverse workplace will result in increased sales, a stronger team, better customer relations, and higher productivity (Wikhamn, 2019). Consequently, this will support the achievement of the organization’s mission.
Ford Motor Company has different job positions in the HR department. First is the human resource business operations manager. The position involves career development and training, and actively leading the business to achieve organizational and individual effectiveness. The operations manager also promotes talent transition, development, acquisition, and proactively supporting the delivery of services, policies and products of the department. The second position is the human resource generalist job (Martinez, M. (2018). The responsibilities of this job include delivering HR services and products, such as labor agreements and managing all aspects of salary and hourly employee administration on shifts/crews that they have been assigned.
Lastly, we have the human resource labor relations representative. The job functions of this position are overseeing the daily operations of the labor relations office, ensuring positive management relations are maintained and coordinating the negotiations, implementation, and administration of contracts of Local and Master Collective Bargaining Agreements (Martinez, 2018). Among the three, I would prefer the HR generalist position. The position involved being an HR business advisor and managing all employees' HR functions in the company. I would enjoy that role more because it is a challenging position since I would be knowledgeable on a wide range of divisions and functions in the HR sector.
All organizations target to have an advantage over its competitors in the market. As a motor company, Ford can decide to compete by providing the lowest market price. To successfully do that, the organization should ensure they maximize profits by having the least operating expenses. For example, they can choose to obtain human capital offshore and from independent contractors. In this manner, HR expenses will be reduced, and when combined with other ways of minimizing costs, significant profits will be derived. Another way of improving competitive advantage is by recruiting a highly-skilled workforce (Saha, Gregar, & Saha, 2017). The skills that these employees offer will provide superior products that will be provided through premiums charged. Although it costs much to recruit, train, and retain highly skilled employees, the value will be recovered through the company's offerings that are charged through premiums. The company can also choose operational effectiveness as a source of competitive advantage. The company can come up with ways of reducing internal costs, which will, in turn, raise the operating margins. With a rich internal culture that involves high employee engagement and morale, Ford will increase its productivity and consequently increase profits.
Having a diverse workforce is one way to increase competitive advantage. One technique of enhancing diversity at Ford Motor Company is making a long-term engagement with diversity. The company should develop a diversity plan that will last for at least two years instead of making short-term commitments to diversify human resource activities. In this way, the company will be able to build on its achievements and learn from previous mistakes. Secondly, Ford should ensure that its managers put a value on diversity and show it through their decisions and actions. Lastly, the company should provide training and seminars for other employees to teach them the importance of diversity and methods of coping up with conflicts related to diversity (Wikhamn, 2019). Besides, training exemplifies inclusiveness and reinforce behaviors.
References
Martinez, M. (2018). Ford: Work ahead but no crisis; What’s behind Hackett’s new strategy? Automotive News , (6849).
Saha, N., Gregar, A., & Saha, P. (2017). Organizational agility and HRM strategy: Do they really enhance firms’ competitiveness? International Journal of Organizational Leadership , (3), 323.
Wikhamn, W. (2019). Innovation, sustainable HRM, and customer satisfaction. International Journal of Hospitality Management , 76 (Part A), 102–110.
